Criminalistics (page 4)
Career Opportunities
Criminalists work in forensic laboratories in police departments,
sheriff's offices, district attorney's offices, regional
and state agencies, medical examiners' offices, private
companies, colleges and universities, and for federal agencies
such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Federal Bureau of
Identification (FBI), United States Postal Service (USPS),
Secret Service (SS), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
the military forces, and the United States Fish and Wildlife
Services. Criminalists assist the United States Department
of Justice in helping other countries create or update forensic
services.
The criminalist may start as a bench scientist after graduating
from college and, through education and dedication, work
his way up to forensic laboratory director. There are many
opportunities to teach at community colleges and universities.
As science advances, more criminalists will be needed to
perform new tests in an ever-expanding field of evidence.
One of the newest areas of criminalists is wildlife
forensics. Poaching violations, the development
of state and federal hunting regulations, the Endangered
Species Act of 1973, and the United National Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES) are
some of the factors which helped create this new field.
The major difference between criminal forensic science and
wildlife forensic science is that the victim (and occasionally
the suspect) is an animal.
The identification of wildlife evidence, however, can be
more complicated than human science in that wildlife enforcement
officers rarely seize whole animals, which can be readily
identified by a museum or zoo expert. They will more typically
confiscate parts and products of these animals as evidence.
The problem then is that the characteristics which define
an animal species are rarely present in those parts or products.
Pelts and skins from endangered animals.
Wildlife forensic scientists are often required
to develop new ways to identify species through research
with carefully documented known specimens before they can
examine evidence in a case and testify in court. An additional
complication is that, while human forensics deals with only
a single species (homo sapiens), wildlife forensic scientists
must be prepared to identify evidence from any species in
the world that is illegally killed, smuggled, poached or
sold on an illicit market. Examples of wildlife evidence
items might be blood on an illegal hunter's clothing; fresh,
frozen or smoked meats; loose hair; fur coats; reptile leather
products, such as purses, belts, and shoes; loose feathers
and down; carved ivory objects; sea turtle oil (suntan lotion);
shell jewelry; and powdered rhinoceros horn.
Illegal items made from ivory.
While it might seem that wildlife forensic scientists face
an overwhelming task in developing new and reliable ID techniques,
they do have one advantage over other forensic scientists:
sample size is rarely a problem. Example seizures of wildlife
evidence have included 20,000 pounds of suspected sea turtle
meat, 10,000 pounds of ivory, and 300,000 suspected rhinoceros
horn pills.
